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[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
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UW
6* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
7remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
8with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
9the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
10
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11* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
12now complete on file names.
13
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14* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
15completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
16For instance, consider:
17
18 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
19 # struct example variable;
20 (gdb) p variable.
21
22If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
23completions will be "f1" and "f2".
24
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25* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
26operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
27macros.
28
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29* New remote packets
30
31qSearch:memory:
32 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
33
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34QStartNoAckMode
35 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
36 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
37 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
38
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39* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
40
41 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
42 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
43 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
44
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45* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
46source+assembly.
47
c055b101 48* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 49DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
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50
51* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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52and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
53`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 54
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55* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
56with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
57
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58* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
59
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60* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
61
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62* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
63which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
64
1fddbabb 65* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 66list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 67
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68* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
69conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
70have also been fixed.
71
bfb8797a 72* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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73From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
74are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 75
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76* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
77
78 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
79 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
80
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81 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
82 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
83 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
84
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85 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
86 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
87
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88 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
89 gdbserver.
90
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91* Python scripting
92
93 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
94 available is determined at configure time.
95
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96* Ada tasking support
97
98 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
99 been introduced:
100
101 info tasks
102 Print the list of Ada tasks.
103 info task N
104 Print detailed information about task number N.
105 task
106 Print the task number of the current task.
107 task N
108 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
109
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110* New commands
111
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112find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
113 val1 [, val2, ...]
114 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
115
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116maint set python print-stack
117maint show python print-stack
118 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
119
120python [CODE]
121 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
122
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123set print symbol-loading
124show print symbol-loading
125 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
126
e0a3ce09 127set debug timestamp
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128show debug timestamp
129 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
130
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131set exec-wrapper
132show exec-wrapper
133unset exec-wrapper
134 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 135
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136set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
137show multiple-symbols
138 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
139 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
140 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
141
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142set breakpoint always-inserted
143show breakpoint always-inserted
144 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
145 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
146 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
147
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148set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
149show arm fallback-mode
150set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
151show arm force-mode
152 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
153 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
154 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
155 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
156
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157set disable-randomization
158show disable-randomization
159 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
160 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
161 multiple debugging sessions.
162
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163set target-async
164 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
165 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
166 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
167 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
168
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169macro define
170macro list
171macro undef
172 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
173 interactively.
174
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175* New native configurations
176
177x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
178
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179* New targets
180
181x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
182
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183* Removed commands
184
185catch load
186catch unload
187 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
188
75feb17d 189*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 190
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191* New native configurations
192
193NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 194Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
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195
196* New targets
197
198NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 199Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 200
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201* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
202
203 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
204 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
205 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
206 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
207
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208* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
209(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
210
fe6fbf8b 211* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 212is resolved.
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213
214* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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215including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
216and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 217
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218* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
219accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
220more than one contiguous range of addresses.
221
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222* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
223
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224* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
225registers on PowerPC targets.
226
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227* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
228targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
229
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230* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
231commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
232
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233* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
234extended-remote mode.
235
24a836bd 236* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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237The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
238error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
239The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 240
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241* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
242building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
243target architectures.
244
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245* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
246Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
247now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
248stored in two consecutive float registers.
249
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250* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
251breakpoints now.
252
b93b6ca7 253* Improved support for debugging Ada
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254Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
255include:
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256 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
257 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
258 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
259 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
260 of an assignment
261 - Improved command completion in Ada
262 - Several bug fixes
263
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264* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
265process.
266
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267* New commands
268
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269set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
270show print frame-arguments
271 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
272 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
273
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274remote put
275remote get
276remote delete
277 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
278
279* New MI commands
280
281-target-file-put
282-target-file-get
283-target-file-delete
284 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
285
286* New remote packets
287
288vFile:open:
289vFile:close:
290vFile:pread:
291vFile:pwrite:
292vFile:unlink:
293 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 294
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295vAttach
296 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
297 mode.
298
299vRun
300 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
301
8d5f9c6f 302*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 303
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304* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
305bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
306Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
307
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308* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
309symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
310-Bsymbolic linker option.
311
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312* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
313recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
314is not supported.
315
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316* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
317frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
318
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319* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
32032-bit or 64-bit register values.
321
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322* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
323
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324* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
325target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
326a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
327
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328* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
329automatically displayed as character or string data.
330
331* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
332arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
333as strings.
e1f48ead 334
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335* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
336for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 337only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 338
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339* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
340iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 341
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342* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
343ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
344has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
345
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346* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
347
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UW
348* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
349
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350* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
351layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
352segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
353
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354* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
355immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
356
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357* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
358"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
359packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
360where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
361Windows and SymbianOS).
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362
363* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
364(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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365
366* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
367according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 368
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369* New commands
370
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371set remoteflow
372show remoteflow
373 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
374 when debugging using remote targets.
375
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376set mem inaccessible-by-default
377show mem inaccessible-by-default
378 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
379 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
380 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
381 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
382 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
383
384set breakpoint auto-hw
385show breakpoint auto-hw
386 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
387 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
388 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
389 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
390 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
391 including "next" and "finish".
392
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393catch exception
394catch exception unhandled
395 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
396
397catch assert
398 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
399
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400set sysroot
401show sysroot
402 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
403 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
404 an alias to "set sysroot".
405
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406info spu
407 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
408 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
409 architecture.
410
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411* New native configurations
412
413OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
414
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415set tdesc filename
416unset tdesc filename
417show tdesc filename
418 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
419 not query the target for its built-in description.
420
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421* New targets
422
54fe9172 423OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 424MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 425Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 426
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427* New remote packets
428
429QPassSignals:
430 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
431 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
432
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433qXfer:features:read:
434 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
435 features.
6dd09645 436
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437qXfer:spu:read:
438qXfer:spu:write:
439 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
440 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
441
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442qXfer:libraries:read:
443 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
444 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
445 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
446 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
447
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448* Removed targets
449
450Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
451
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452alpha*-*-osf1*
453alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 454d10v-*-*
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455hppa*-*-hiux*
456i[34567]86-ncr-*
457i[34567]86-*-dgux*
458i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
459i[34567]86-*-netware*
460i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
461i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
462i[34567]86-*-sco*
463i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
464i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
465i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
466i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
467i[34567]86-*-unixware*
468i[34567]86-*-sysv*
469i[34567]86-*-isc*
470m68*-cisco*-*
471m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 472mips*-*-pe
483367ee 473rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 474sh*-*-pe
483367ee 475
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476* Other removed features
477
478target abug
479target cpu32bug
480target est
481target rom68k
482
483 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
484
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485target hms
486target e7000
487target sh3
488target sh3e
489
490 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
491 H8/300.
492
493target ocd
494
495 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
496 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
497 interfaces.
498
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499DWARF 1 support
500
501 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
502 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
503
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504Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
505
506 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
507 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
508 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
509 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
510
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511MIPS ".pdr" sections
512
513 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
514 in debugging information.
515
516Scheme support
517
518 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
519 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
520
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521set mips stack-arg-size
522set mips saved-gpreg-size
523
524 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
525
6dd09645 526*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 527
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528* New targets
529
530Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 531Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 532
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533* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
534(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
535running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
536
537* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
538Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
539supported.
540
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541* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
542broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
543
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544* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
545stub provides the required support.
546
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547* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
548longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
549
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550* New commands
551
552set substitute-path
553unset substitute-path
554show substitute-path
555 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
556 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
557 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
558 between compilation and debugging.
559
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560set trace-commands
561show trace-commands
562 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
563 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
564 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
565
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566* REMOVED features
567
568The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
569
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570Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
571an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
572
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573The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
574
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575* New remote packets
576
577qSupported:
578 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
579 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
580 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
581 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
582 target.
583
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584qXfer:auxv:read:
585 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
586 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
587
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588qXfer:memory-map:read:
589 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
590 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
591
592vFlashErase:
593vFlashWrite:
594vFlashDone:
595 Erase and program a flash memory device.
596
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597* Removed remote packets
598
599qPart:auxv:read:
600 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
601 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
602
e374b601 603*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 604
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605* New targets
606
607Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
608
609Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
610
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611* New commands
612
613init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
614 only if it doesn't already have a value.
615
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616The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
617
618checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
619
620restart <n> Return the program state to a
621 previously saved state.
622
623info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
624
625delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
626
627set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
628 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
629
630info forks List forks of the user program that
631 are available to be debugged.
632
633fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
634 forks of the user program that are
635 available to be debugged.
636
637delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
638 that are available to be debugged (and
639 kill the forked process).
640
641detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
642 that are available to be debugged (and
643 allow the process to continue).
644
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645* New architecture
646
647Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
648
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649* Improved Windows host support
650
651GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
652native console support, and remote communications using either
653network sockets or serial ports.
654
f79daebb
GM
655* Improved Modula-2 language support
656
657GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
658basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
659pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
660printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
661written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
662GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
663
acab6ab2
MM
664* REMOVED features
665
666The ARM rdi-share module.
667
f4267320
DJ
668The Netware NLM debug server.
669
53e5f3cf 670*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 671
e0ecbda1
MK
672* New native configurations
673
02a677ac 674OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
675OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
676
d64a6579
KB
677* New targets
678
679Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
680
b33a6190
AS
681* New command line options
682
683--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
684--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
685 the child (debugged) program exited with.
686--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
687 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
688 specified multiple times and in conjunction
689 with the --command (-x) option.
690
11dced61
AC
691* Deprecated commands removed
692
693The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
694removed:
695
696 Command Replacement
697 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
698 othernames set arm disassembler
699 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
700 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
701 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
702 regs info registers
703
6fe85783
MK
704* New BSD user-level threads support
705
706It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
707library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
708configurations are:
709
710FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
711FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
712OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
713
714Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
715are not yet supported.
716
5260ca71
MS
717* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
718(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
719
e84ecc99
AC
720* REMOVED configurations and files
721
722VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 723Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 724National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 725
31e35378
JB
726* New "set print array-indexes" command
727
728After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
729when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
730behavior.
731
e85e5c83
MK
732* VAX floating point support
733
734GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
735
d91e9901
AS
736* User-defined command support
737
738In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
739to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
740section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
741
f2cb65ca
MC
742*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
743
f47b1503
AS
744* New command line option
745
746GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
747debugging.
748
f2cb65ca
MC
749* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
750
751GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
752information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
753by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
754proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
755to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 756
d08c0230
AC
757* Internationalization
758
759When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
760internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
761continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
762
117ea3cf
PH
763* Ada
764
765Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
766implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
767into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
768
d08c0230
AC
769* New native configurations
770
771GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
772
773* Remote 'p' packet
774
775GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
776packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
777
778* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
779
780GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
781The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
782features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
783i386 application).
784
785GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
786compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
787continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
788configurations:
789
790hppa-*-hpux
791ia64-*-aix
792mips-*-irix*
793*-*-lynx
794mips-*-linux-gnu
795sds protocol
796xdr protocol
797powerpc bdm protocol
798
799Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
800made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
801
802* OBSOLETE configurations and files
803
804Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
805been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
806configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
807permanently REMOVED.
808
809h8300-*-*
810mcore-*-*
811mn10300-*-*
812ns32k-*-*
813sh64-*-*
814v850-*-*
815
ebb7c577
AC
816*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
817
818* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
819
820When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
821heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
822been fixed.
823
824* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
825
826When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
827fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
828IRIX long double values).
829
830* VAX and "next"
831
832A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
833command. This problem has been fixed.
834
860660cb 835*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 836
0dea2468
AC
837* Fix for ``many threads''
838
839On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
840rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
841error message:
842
843 ptrace: No such process.
844 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
845
846This problem has been fixed.
847
2c07db7a
AC
848* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
849
850Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
851GDB to dump core).
852
c23968a2
JB
853* New ``start'' command.
854
855This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
856
71009278
MK
857* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
858
859Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
860live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
861platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
862
863FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
864FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
865NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
866NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
867NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
868OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
869OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
870OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
871OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
872
3c0b7db2
AC
873* Signal trampoline code overhauled
874
875Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
876These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
877of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
878call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
879signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
880
73cc75f3
AC
881Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
882features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
883include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 884
7243600a
BF
885* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
886
6f606e1c
MK
887* New native configurations
888
97dc871c 889GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 890OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
891OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
892OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 893OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 894NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 895OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 896
a1b461bf
AC
897* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
898
899GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
900The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
901including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
902migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
903compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
904work, was also included.
905
906GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
907module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
908
909h8300-*-*
910mcore-*-*
911mn10300-*-*
912ns32k-*-*
913sh64-*-*
914v850-*-*
915xstormy16-*-*
916
917Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
918made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
919
3c7012f5
AC
920* REMOVED configurations and files
921
922Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
923Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
924Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
925Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
926Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
927AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
928Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
929decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
930riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
931sonymips mips-sony-*
932sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
933
e5fe55f7
AC
934*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
935
936* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
937
938The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
939GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
940command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
941program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
942with GDB".
943
944* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
945
946Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
947libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
948cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
949GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
950shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
951the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
952are created.
953
954Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
955
956* Fixed ISO-C build problems
957
958The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
959non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
960compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
961
962* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
963
964Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
965wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
966
967* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
968
969The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
970permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
971systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
972
973* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
974
975Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
976has been updated to use constant array sizes.
977
978* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
979
980GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
981its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
982panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
983
984* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
985
986When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
987by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
988not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
989
faae5abe 990*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 991
9175c9a3
MC
992* Removed --with-mmalloc
993
994Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
995conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
996
3cc87ec0
MK
997* Changes in AMD64 configurations
998
999The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1000the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1001and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1002you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1003
f0424ef6
MK
1004* Revised SPARC target
1005
1006The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1007FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1008support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1009from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1010(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1011
59659be2
ILT
1012* New C++ demangler
1013
1014GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1015names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1016with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1017programs.
1018
9e08b29b
DJ
1019* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1020
1021GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1022arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1023encountered these.
1024
8dfe8985
DC
1025* C++ nested types and namespaces
1026
1027GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1028improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1029is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1030Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1031namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1032"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1033frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1034if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1035GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1036
cced5e27
MK
1037* New native configurations
1038
1039NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1040OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1041OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1042OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1043OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1044
b4b4b794
KI
1045* New debugging protocols
1046
1047M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1048
7989c619
AC
1049* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1050
1051The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1052and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1053tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1054
5994185b
AC
1055* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1056
1057Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1058been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1059configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1060permanently REMOVED.
1061
1062Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1063Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1064Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1065Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1066Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1067AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1068Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1069decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1070riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1071sonymips mips-sony-*
1072sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1073
0ddabb4c
AC
1074* REMOVED configurations and files
1075
1076SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1077SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1078Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1079Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1080H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1081HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1082HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1083HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1084PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1085386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1086Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1087 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1088 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1089SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1090SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1091Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1092Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1093
c7f1390e
DJ
1094*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1095
1fe43d45
AC
1096* Objective-C
1097
1098Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1099integrated into GDB.
1100
e6beb428
AC
1101* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1102
1103DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1104information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1105By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1106backtraces.
1107
1108The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1109have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1110DWARF 2 CFI support.
1111
1112* Hosted file I/O.
1113
1114GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1115file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1116remote protocol documentation for details.
1117
1118* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1119
1120All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1121architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1122to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1123ppc32 on ppc64).
1124
1125* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1126
1127GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1128per-thread variables.
1129
1130* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1131
1132GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1133GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1134
1135* Separate debug info.
1136
1137GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1138automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1139of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1140system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1141and optional debug files.
1142
1143* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1144
1145DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1146describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1147debugger.
1148
1149GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1150for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1151
1152* Java
1153
1154A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1155Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1156considered "useable".
1157
85f8f974
DJ
1158* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1159
1160The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1161commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1162kernel.
1163
0fac0b41
DJ
1164* GDB supports logging output to a file
1165
1166There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1167used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1168
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1169* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1170
1171The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1172disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1173command.
1174
e286caf2 1175* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1176
1177The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1178registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1179
d28f9cdf
DJ
1180* Profiling support
1181
1182A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1183be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1184session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1185"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1186data, for more informative profiling results.
1187
da0f9dcd
AC
1188* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1189
1190The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1191option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1192"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1193
1194Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1195removed.
1196
fb9b6b35
JJ
1197Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1198Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1199Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1200 in a subsequent -var-update.
1201
954a4db8
MK
1202* New native configurations.
1203
1204FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1205
6760f9e6
JB
1206* Multi-arched targets.
1207
b4263afa 1208HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1209Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1210
1b831c93
AC
1211* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1212
1213Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1214been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1215configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1216permanently REMOVED.
1217
8b0e5691 1218Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1219Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1220H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1221HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1222HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1223HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1224PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1225Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1226 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1227 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1228Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1229Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1230
5835abe7
NC
1231* REMOVED configurations and files
1232
1233V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1234Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1235IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1236i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1237i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1238i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1239HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1240 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1241 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1242Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1243Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1244Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1245OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1246I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1247
a094c6fb
AC
1248* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1249
1250The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1251the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1252context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1253address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1254The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1255
299ffc64 1256*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1257
46248966
AC
1258* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1259
1260When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1261`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1262in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1263library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1264shared libs like mad''.
1265
b9d14705 1266* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1267
b9d14705
DJ
1268Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1269the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1270arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1271powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1272
e0e9281e
JB
1273* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1274
1275GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1276and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1277they expand.
1278
dd73b9bb
AC
1279The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1280invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1281
1282The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1283macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1284
e0e9281e
JB
1285Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1286information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1287your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1288information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1289
2250ee0c
CV
1290* Multi-arched targets.
1291
6e3ba3b8
JT
1292DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1293DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1294NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1295National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1296Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1297Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1298
cd9bfe15 1299* New targets.
e33ce519 1300
456f8b9d
DB
1301Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1302
e33ce519 1303
da8ca43d
JT
1304* New native configurations
1305
1306Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1307SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1308MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1309UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1310
cd9bfe15
AC
1311* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1312
1313Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1314been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1315configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1316permanently REMOVED.
1317
92eb23c5 1318Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1319OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1320IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1321Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1322Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1323Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1324i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1325i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1326i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1327HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1328 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1329 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1330I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1331
db034ac5
AC
1332* OBSOLETE languages
1333
1334CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1335
cd9bfe15
AC
1336* REMOVED configurations and files
1337
1338AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1339A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1340AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1341AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1342AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1343
1344testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1345
20f01a46
DH
1346* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1347
1348This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1349commands. The default is 1024.
1350
a5941fbf
MK
1351* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1352
1353Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1354
89743e04
MS
1355* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1356
1357These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1358to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1359from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1360
9fb14e79
JB
1361* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1362
1363The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1364including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1365of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1366
2037aebb
AC
1367*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1368
1369* New targets.
1370
1371Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1372
1373* Bug fixes
1374
1375gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1376mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1377Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1378
1379gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1380dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1381Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1382
1383Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1384Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1385By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1386
1387i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1388avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1389By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1390
37057839 1391*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1392
1a703748
MS
1393* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1394
1395This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1396really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1397In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1398target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1399This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1400(notably embedded) targets.
1401
cefd4ef5
MS
1402* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1403
55241689
AC
1404This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1405process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1406GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1407hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1408
352ed7b4
MS
1409* New command line option
1410
1411GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1412
1413* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1414
1415There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1416command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1417a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1418be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1419open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1420issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1421a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1422it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1423GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1424is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1425
fe419ffc
RE
1426* Changes in ARM configurations.
1427
1428Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1429configuration is fully multi-arch.
1430
eb7cedd9
MK
1431* New native configurations
1432
fe419ffc 1433ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1434x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1435AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1436Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1437
c9f63e6b
CV
1438* New targets
1439
1440Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1441
9b4ff276
AC
1442* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1443
1444Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1445been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1446configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1447permanently REMOVED.
1448
1449AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1450A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1451AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1452AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1453AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1454
b4ceaee6 1455testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1456
e2caac18
AC
1457* REMOVED configurations and files
1458
1459TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1460WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1461PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1462PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1463PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1464Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1465Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1466 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1467SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1468Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1469Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1470ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1471Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1472
c2a727fa
TT
1473* Changes to command line processing
1474
1475The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1476for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1477
467d8519
TT
1478* Changes to key bindings
1479
1480There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1481
7072a954
AC
1482*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1483
1484Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1485
1486Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1487corrupted.
1488
1489Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1490
1491Numerous documentation fixes.
1492
1493Numerous testsuite fixes.
1494
34f47bc4 1495*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1496
1497* New native configurations
1498
1499Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1500x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1501MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1502MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1503ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1504s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1505
bf64bfd6
AC
1506* New targets
1507
def90278 1508Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1509CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1510UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1511
17e78a56 1512* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1513
1514x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1515Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1516Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1517 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1518TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1519WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1520Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1521PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1522PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1523PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1524SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1525Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1526ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1527Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1528
17e78a56
AC
1529stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1530kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1531
7fcca85b
AC
1532Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1533been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1534configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1535permanently REMOVED.
1536
a196c81c 1537* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1538
1539Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1540Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1541Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1542ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1543Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1544ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1545
6d6b80e5 1546* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1547
6d6b80e5 1548GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1549sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1550present.
1551
bf64bfd6
AC
1552* Other news:
1553
e23194cb
EZ
1554* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1555
1556* The MI enabled by default.
1557
1558The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1559revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1560engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1561using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1562which is now deprecated.
1563
1564* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1565
1566GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1567main features are supported:
1568
1569 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1570
1571 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1572 extension;
1573
1574 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1575
1576 - a Pascal expression parser.
1577
1578However, some important features are not yet supported.
1579
1580 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1581
1582 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1583
1584 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1585 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1586
1587 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1588
1589 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1590
1591* Changes in completion.
1592
1593Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1594to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1595users expect at the shell prompt.
1596
1597Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1598`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1599program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1600files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1601be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1602considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1603name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1604
1605`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1606
1607* New platform-independent commands:
1608
1609It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1610hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1611documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1612
1613* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1614
d7275149
MK
1615Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1616revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1617many threads as your system allows you to have.
1618
e23194cb
EZ
1619Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1620
d7275149
MK
1621Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1622multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1623
1624* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1625
1626Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1627
e23194cb
EZ
1628GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1629debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1630supported.)
1631
1632* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1633
1634Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1635breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1636implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1637put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1638and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1639registers.
1640
1641The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1642debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1643watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1644
1645* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1646
1647New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1648the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1649
1650New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1651display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1652IDT.
1653
1654New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1655from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1656New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1657a given linear address.
1658
1659GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1660program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1661which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1662
1663DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1664
6c56c069
EZ
1665It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1666
e23194cb
EZ
1667* Changes in documentation.
1668
1669All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1670Documentation License.
1671
1672Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1673manual.
1674
1675TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1676
1677Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1678manual.
1679
1680The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1681documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1682hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1683
5d6640b1
AC
1684* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1685
1686The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1687``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1688contents of this file.
1689
1a1d8446
AC
1690* gdba.el deleted
1691
1692GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1693
9debab2f 1694*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1695
c63ce875
EZ
1696* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1697
1698Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1699programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1700displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1701greater level of detail.
1702
1703* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1704
1705It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1706bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1707on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1708written.
1709
1710* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1711
1712The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1713necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1714machines ``out of the box''.
1715
1716The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1717possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1718signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1719would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1720interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1721
1722It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1723standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1724even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1725and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1726terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1727
1728The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1729enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1730also works.
1731
1732DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1733GDB.
1734
1735It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1736directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1737times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1738breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1739
ed9a39eb
JM
1740* New native configurations
1741
1742ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1743PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1744
7a292a7a
SS
1745* New targets
1746
96baa820 1747Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1748x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1749PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1750TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1751
085dd6e6
JM
1752* OBSOLETE configurations
1753
1754Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1755Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1756Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1757ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1758Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1759
9debab2f
AC
1760Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1761but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1762these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1763be permanently REMOVED.
1764
5330533d
SS
1765* Gould support removed
1766
1767Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1768
bc9e5bbf
AC
1769* New features for SVR4
1770
1771On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1772without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1773load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1774
1775* Many C++ enhancements
1776
1777C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1778in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1779
adf40b2e
JM
1780* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1781
1782A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1783sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1784with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1785``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1786
1787 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1788 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1789
43e526b9
JM
1790* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1791
1792A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1793expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1794instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1795
1796The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1797added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1798
96baa820
JM
1799* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1800
1801The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1802``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1803include ``set remote P-packet''.
1804
11cf8741
JM
1805* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1806
1807The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1808accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1809``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1810
7876dd43
DB
1811* ``apropos'' command added.
1812
1813The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1814documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1815try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1816
bc9e5bbf
AC
1817* New MI interface
1818
1819A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1820interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1821process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1822"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1823enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1824
1825 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1826
c906108c
SS
1827*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1828
1829* New native configurations
1830
1831HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1832HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1833M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1834
1835* New targets
1836
1837Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1838Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1839Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1840
1841* OBSOLETE configurations
1842
1843Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1844
1845Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1846but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1847these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1848be permanently REMOVED.
1849
1850* ANSI/ISO C
1851
1852As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1853buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1854containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1855use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1856available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1857configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1858information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1859already.
1860
1861* Readline 2.2
1862
1863GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1864
1865* set extension-language
1866
1867You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1868languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1869you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1870 set extension-language .c c++
1871The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1872and their associated languages.
1873
1874* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1875
1876When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1877you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1878PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1879
1880 set processor NAME
1881
1882sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1883following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1884
1885 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1886 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1887 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1888 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1889 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1890 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1891 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1892 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1893 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1894 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1895 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1896
1897At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1898special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1899registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1900only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1901
1902* HP-UX support
1903
1904Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1905more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1906library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1907support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1908for xdb and dbx commands.
1909
1910* Catchpoints
1911
1912HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1913generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1914to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1915
1916This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1917argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1918output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1919
1920* Debugging across forks
1921
1922On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1923in the inferior.
1924
1925* TUI
1926
1927HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1928it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1929configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1930
1931* GDB remote protocol additions
1932
1933A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1934Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1935fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1936allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1937
1938For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1939full 64-bit address. The command
1940
1941 set remoteaddresssize 32
1942
1943can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1944the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1945will be discarded.
1946
1947In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1948command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1949
1950 maint packet heythere
1951
1952sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1953disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1954time.
1955
1956The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1957target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1958downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1959
1960* Tracing can collect general expressions
1961
1962You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1963further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1964doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1965
1966* mask-address variable for Mips
1967
1968For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1969a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1970of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1971
1972* Higher serial baud rates
1973
1974GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1975230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1976to achieve all of these rates.)
1977
1978* i960 simulator
1979
1980The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1981builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1982
1983
1984*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1985
1986* New native configurations
1987
1988Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1989Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1990Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1991PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1992PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1993Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1994Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1995
1996* New targets
1997
1998Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1999Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2000Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2001Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2002MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2003MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2004MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2005Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2006Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2007Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2008NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2009
2010* New debugging protocols
2011
2012ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2013M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2014DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2015PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2016PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2017Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2018
2019* DWARF 2
2020
2021All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2022format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2023information.
2024
2025* Java frontend
2026
2027GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2028only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2029
2030* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2031
2032For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2033loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2034locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2035
2036* Live range splitting
2037
2038GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2039range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2040more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2041
2042* Hurd support
2043
2044GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2045updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2046
2047* ARM Thumb support
2048
2049GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2050instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2051instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2052accordingly.
2053
2054* MIPS16 support
2055
2056GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2057instruction set.
2058
2059* Overlay support
2060
2061GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2062linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2063will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2064control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2065additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2066in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2067
2068* info symbol
2069
2070The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2071the symbol at the specified address.
2072
2073* Trace support
2074
2075The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2076asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2077extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2078includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2079file tracepoint.c for more details.
2080
2081* MIPS simulator
2082
2083Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2084by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2085of most MIPS variants.
2086
2087* Sparc simulator
2088
2089Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2090by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2091Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2092
2093* set architecture
2094
2095For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2096basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2097architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2098the possible architectures.
2099
2100*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2101
2102* New native configurations
2103
2104Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2105M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2106PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2107PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2108PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2109RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2110
2111* New targets
2112
2113ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2114I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2115MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2116MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2117PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2118Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2119Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2120
2121* PowerPC simulator
2122
2123The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2124contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2125PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2126basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2127performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2128
2129* Solaris 2.5
2130
2131GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2132
2133* Windows 95/NT native
2134
2135GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2136To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2137which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2138Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2139ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2140
2141* dont-repeat command
2142
2143If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2144command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2145useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2146extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2147
2148* Send break instead of ^C
2149
2150The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2151rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2152GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2153
2154* Remote protocol timeout
2155
2156The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2157that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2158to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2159
2160* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2161
2162By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2163loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2164stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2165when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2166in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2167
2168Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2169/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2170automatically on hpux10.
2171
2172* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2173
2174Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2175
2176* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2177
2178When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2179may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2180the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2181every character. The default value is 1050.
2182
2183* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2184
2185If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2186a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2187replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2188details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2189remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2190to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2191
2192* Speedups for remote debugging
2193
2194GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2195the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2196and more efficient S-record downloading.
2197
2198* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2199
2200GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2201Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2202
2203*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2204
2205* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2206
2207The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2208can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2209
2210* Remote targets use caching
2211
2212Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2213remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2214it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2215debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2216off' turns the the data cache off.
2217
2218* Remote targets may have threads
2219
2220The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2221in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2222gdb/remote.c for details.
2223
2224* NetROM support
2225
2226If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2227support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2228acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2229write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2230support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2231another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2232sequence is something like
2233
2234 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2235 load <prog>
2236 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2237
2238* Macintosh host
2239
2240GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2241may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2242it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2243available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2244device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2245directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2246scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2247mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2248
2249* Autoconf
2250
2251GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2252but does simplify configuration and building.
2253
2254* hpux10
2255
2256GDB now supports hpux10.
2257
2258*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2259
2260* New native configurations
2261
2262x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2263x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2264NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2265Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2266
2267* New targets
2268
2269A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2270HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2271CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2272PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2273WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2274
2275* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2276
2277GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2278possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2279filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2280the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2281if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2282
2283* Arguments to user-defined commands
2284
2285User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2286Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2287trivial example:
2288define adder
2289 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2290
2291To execute the command use:
2292adder 1 2 3
2293
2294Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2295Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2296use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2297
2298* New `if' and `while' commands
2299
2300This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2301commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2302expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2303execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2304terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2305`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2306if the expression is zero.
2307
2308* Fortran source language mode
2309
2310GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2311Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2312variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2313with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2314Fortran compilers.
2315
2316* Better HPUX support
2317
2318Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2319running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2320processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2321for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2322that behavior do the following before running the program:
2323
2324 adb -w a.out
2325 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2326 control-d
2327
2328This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2329To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2330
2331 adb -w a.out
2332 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2333 control-d
2334
2335You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2336the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2337external linkage.
2338
2339GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2340HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2341
2342* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2343
2344You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2345commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2346current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2347"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2348associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2349configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2350
2351* New DOS host serial code
2352
2353This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2354no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2355a PC's serial port.
2356
2357*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2358
2359* New "complete" command
2360
2361This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2362were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2363
2364* Trailing space optional in prompt
2365
2366"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2367allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2368
2369* Breakpoint hit counts
2370
2371"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2372has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2373can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2374to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2375less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2376that breakpoint.
2377
2378* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2379
2380"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2381an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2382arrays actually contain only short strings.
2383
2384* Shared library breakpoints
2385
2386In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2387breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2388
2389* Hardware watchpoints
2390
2391There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2392targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2393
55241689 2394Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2395
2396* Annotations
2397
2398Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2399and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2400
2401* Improved Irix 5 support
2402
2403GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2404
2405* Improved HPPA support
2406
2407GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2408
2409* New native configurations
2410
2411Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2412HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2413Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2414RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2415
2416* New targets
2417
2418OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2419MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2420Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2421
2422* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2423
2424There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2425This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2426
2427* Fixes
2428
2429As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2430and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2431
2432*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2433
2434* Irix 5 is now supported
2435
2436* HPPA support
2437
2438GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2439to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2440GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2441of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2442can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2443
2444
2445*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2446
2447* User visible changes:
2448
2449* Remote Debugging
2450
2451The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2452target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2453debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2454integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2455debugging info for the mips target).
2456
2457* DEC Alpha native support
2458
2459GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2460debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2461work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2462Alpha-specific notes.
2463
2464* Preliminary thread implementation
2465
2466GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2467
2468* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2469
2470This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2471to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2472for details).
2473
2474* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2475
2476This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2477mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2478call methods, ...etc.
2479
2480*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2481
2482 * User visible changes:
2483
2484Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2485supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2486other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2487somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2488
2489Filename completion now works.
2490
2491When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2492arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2493addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2494
2495All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2496vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2497should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2498your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2499to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2500
2501 * DEC alpha support
2502
2503This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2504cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2505
2506
2507*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2508
2509 * Testsuite
2510
2511This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2512The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2513via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2514
2515 * C++ demangling
2516
2517'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2518emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2519Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2520disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2521use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2522
2523 * Simulators
2524
2525GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2526So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2527Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2528
2529 * New targets supported
2530
2531H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2532H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2533SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2534Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2535IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2536
2537Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2538version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2539GO32 memory extender.
2540
2541 * New remote protocols
2542
2543MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2544
2545 * New source languages supported
2546
2547This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2548used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2549into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2550
2551
2552*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2553
2554 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2555
2556GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2557version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2558University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2559compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2560format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2561(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2562
2563Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2564
2565 * Faster and better demangling
2566
2567We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2568demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2569character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2570only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2571This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2572increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2573symbol lookups.
2574
2575`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2576from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2577compiler does not actually implement.
2578
2579 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2580
2581In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2582inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2583recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2584very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2585The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2586circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2587fix.
2588
2589The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2590release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2591
2592 * Improved configure script
2593
2594The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2595you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2596host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2597done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2598
2599We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2600version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2601`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2602The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2603only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2604We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2605
2606 * Documentation improvements
2607
2608There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2609produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2610before submitting changes.
2611
2612The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2613M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2614`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2615you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2616a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2617
2618*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2619We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2620been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2621or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2622`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2623around this problem.
2624
2625 * New features
2626
2627GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2628the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2629`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2630the target program.
2631
2632The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2633how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2634
2635 * New native hosts supported
2636
2637HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2638386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2639
2640 * New targets supported
2641
2642AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2643
2644 * New file formats supported
2645
2646BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2647HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2648
2649 * Major bug fixes
2650
2651Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2652
2653We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2654printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2655
2656We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2657for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2658release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2659
2660You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2661will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2662
2663We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2664for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2665especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2666libraries.
2667
2668The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2669information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2670command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2671any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2672when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2673
2674 * Internal improvements
2675
2676GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2677debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2678
2679GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2680Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2681symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2682contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2683shared code that handles any of them.
2684
2685 * New command line options
2686
2687We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2688
2689 * Mmalloc licensing
2690
2691The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2692General Public License.
2693
2694*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2695
2696 * Host/native/target split
2697
2698GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2699hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2700target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2701local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2702ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2703
2704The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2705GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2706is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2707code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2708any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2709built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2710handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2711
2712GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2713It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2714plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2715
2716 * New hosts supported
2717
2718HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2719386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2720386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2721
2722 * New targets supported
2723
2724Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
272568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2726
2727 * New native hosts supported
2728
2729386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2730 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2731386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2732
2733 * New file formats supported
2734
2735BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2736supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2737format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2738
2739 * New commands
2740
2741`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2742`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2743These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2744
2745`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2746
2747You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2748scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2749prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2750executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2751
2752 * C++ improvements
2753
2754We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2755info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2756symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2757
2758Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2759
2760 * Major bug fixes
2761
2762The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2763fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2764by the compiler.
2765
2766We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2767support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2768
2769John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2770slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2771that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2772purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2773the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2774mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2775
2776Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2777about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2778completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2779we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2780
2781 * AMD 29k support
2782
2783A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2784specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2785calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2786usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2787in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2788
2789We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2790Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2791of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2792resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2793
2794 * Remote interfaces
2795
2796We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2797with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2798message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2799This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2800needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2801breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2802each instruction being stepped through.
2803
2804The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2805registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2806
2807There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2808find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2809Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2810processor with a serial port.
2811
2812 * Configuration
2813
2814Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2815`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2816supported, and what files each one uses.
2817
2818 * Library changes
2819
2820There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2821disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2822Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2823disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2824
2825The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2826Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2827can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2828grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2829
2830 * Documentation
2831
2832The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2833reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2834as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2835encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2836system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2837bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2838
2839And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2840
2841
2842*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2843
2844 * Better support for C++ function names
2845
2846GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2847names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2848(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2849single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2850Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2851
2852GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2853the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2854You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2855lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2856for the list of formats.
2857
2858 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2859
2860Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2861C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2862directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2863can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2864usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2865about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2866this problem.)
2867
2868 * New 'maintenance' command
2869
2870All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2871the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2872can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2873
2874 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2875 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2876 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2877 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2878 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2879 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2880
2881The following commands are new:
2882
2883 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2884 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2885 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2886
2887 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2888
2889We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2890(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2891be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2892read after argv processing.
2893
2894 * New hosts supported
2895
2896Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2897
55241689 2898GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2899
2900We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2901is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2902for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2903masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2904fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2905It costs extra.
2906
2907 * New targets supported
2908
2909Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2910
2911 * More smarts about finding #include files
2912
2913GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2914all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2915greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2916especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2917the one that contains your sources.
2918
2919We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2920breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2921try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2922
2923 * Interesting infernals change
2924
2925GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2926section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2927target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2928stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2929
2930 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2931
2932There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2933 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2934 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2935
2936See the ChangeLog for details.
2937
2938*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2939
2940 * New machines supported (host and target)
2941
2942IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2943
2944SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2945
2946 * New malloc package
2947
2948GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2949Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2950capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2951This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2952pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2953more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2954
2955 * info proc
2956
2957The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2958'help info proc' for details.
2959
2960 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2961
2962The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2963Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2964possible.
2965
2966 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2967
2968Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2969support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2970conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2971environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2972that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2973in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2974
2975 * Cross byte order fixes
2976
2977Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2978targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2979
2980 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2981
2982If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2983system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2984`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2985program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2986called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2987Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2988and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2989the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2990option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2991starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2992
2993You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2994the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2995information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2996slower, but makes future operations faster.
2997
2998The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2999build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3000A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3001use is:
3002
3003 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3004
3005The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3006It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3007shared across multiple host platforms.
3008
3009 * longjmp() handling
3010
3011GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3012siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3013all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3014platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3015
3016 * Solaris 2.0
3017
3018Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3019this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3020reading symbols.
3021
3022 * Bug fixes
3023
3024As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3025People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3026crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3027
3028*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3029
3030 * New machines supported (host and target)
3031
3032SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3033 (except core files)
3034BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3035Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3036
3037 * New machines supported (target)
3038
3039AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3040
3041 * C++ support
3042
3043GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3044The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3045per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3046
3047GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3048`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3049extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3050good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3051will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3052released.
3053
3054 * New features for SVR4
3055
3056GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3057shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3058only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3059
3060The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3061on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3062it prints the address mappings of the process.
3063
3064If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3065bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3066
3067 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3068
3069Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3070now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3071skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3072make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3073same code linked statically.
3074
3075 * New Getopt
3076
3077GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3078version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3079continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3080Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3081added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3082future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3083
3084 * Bugs fixed
3085
3086The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3087Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3088See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3089
3090
3091*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3092
3093 * New machines supported (host and target)
3094
3095Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3096NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3097Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3098
3099 * Almost SCO Unix support
3100
3101We had hoped to support:
3102SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3103(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3104that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3105about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3106
3107 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3108
3109GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3110debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3111is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3112send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3113reqired (if any).
3114
3115 * New Readline
3116
3117GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3118is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3119required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3120
3121 * Bugs fixed
3122
3123The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3124Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3125See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3126
3127 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3128
3129GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3130supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3131symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3132
3133Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3134mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3135debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3136mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3137version 2.
3138
3139Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3140really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3141line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3142variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3143situation somewhat.
3144
3145When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3146However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3147methods.
3148
3149We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3150DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3151encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3152
3153
3154*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3155
3156 * Improved configuration
3157
3158Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3159Porting BFD is simpler.
3160
3161 * Stepping improved
3162
3163The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3164of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3165in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3166function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3167
3168 * Bug fixing
3169
3170Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3171
3172 * New host supported (not target)
3173
3174Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3175
3176
3177*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3178
3179 * Multiple source language support
3180
3181GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3182It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3183and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3184language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3185You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3186`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3187
3188 * GDB and Modula-2
3189
3190GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3191currently under development at the State University of New York at
3192Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3193continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3194
3195Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3196debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3197symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3198
3199There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3200in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3201
3202 * set write on/off
3203
3204GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3205a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3206the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3207by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3208effect immediately.
3209
3210 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3211
3212When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3213shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3214The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3215examining core files.
3216
3217 * set listsize
3218
3219You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3220The default is 10.
3221
3222 * New machines supported (host and target)
3223
3224SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3225Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3226Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3227
3228 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3229
3230IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3231
3232 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3233
3234AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3235AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3236Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3237
3238 * New remote interfaces
3239
3240AMD 29000 Adapt
3241AMD 29000 Minimon
3242
3243
3244*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3245
3246 * New Facilities
3247
3248Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3249
3250Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3251target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3252is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3253remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3254remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3255also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3256using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3257stub on the target system.
3258
3259New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3260
3261GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3262library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3263object file types such as a.out and coff.
3264
3265There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3266refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3267
3268
3269 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3270
3271All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3272by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3273
3274For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3275``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3276Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3277
3278What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3279print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3280will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3281all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3282
3283confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3284 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3285 it is already running. Default is ON.
3286
3287editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3288 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3289 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3290 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3291 Default is ON.
3292
3293history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3294 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3295 or the value of the environment variable
3296 GDBHISTFILE.
3297
3298history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3299 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3300 HISTSIZE.
3301
3302history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3303 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3304 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3305
3306history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3307 history expansion will be performed on
3308 command line input. The default is OFF.
3309
3310radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3311 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3312 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3313
3314height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3315 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3316 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3317 variable TERM.
3318
3319width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3320 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3321 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3322 variable TERM.
3323
3324Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3325``set width'' instead.
3326
3327print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3328 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3329 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3330 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3331
3332print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3333 is OFF.
3334
3335print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3336 "raw" form if off.
3337
3338print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3339 like instructions.
3340
3341print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3342
3343
3344 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3345
3346The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3347new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3348are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3349window.
3350
3351
3352 * Support for Shared Libraries
3353
3354GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3355Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3356before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3357happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3358At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3359from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3360shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3361It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3362
3363sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3364 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3365 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3366
3367info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3368
3369
3370 * Watchpoints
3371
3372A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3373expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3374tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3375quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3376problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3377more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3378
3379watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3380
3381info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3382
3383delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3384disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3385enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3386
3387
3388 * C++ multiple inheritance
3389
3390When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3391for C++ programs.
3392
3393 * C++ exception handling
3394
3395Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3396ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3397the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3398handler's context).
3399
3400catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3401 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3402 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3403
3404info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3405 current stack frame.
3406
3407
3408 * Minor command changes
3409
3410The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3411command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3412is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3413
3414The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3415at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3416frames without printing.
3417
3418 * New directory command
3419
3420'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3421The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3422about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3423with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3424find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3425
3426 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3427
3428For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3429for more details.
3430
3431GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3432two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3433Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3434where the program that you are debugging will run.
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